


a choice

by angelatflightrisk



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: ? I guess, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Near Death, and he doesnt understand it, hes just really in love, injuries, khaji dealing with those pesky emotions, khaji is such a goner okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 05:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11307081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelatflightrisk/pseuds/angelatflightrisk
Summary: Khaji Da has a choice to make.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is the shortest thing, i already know. BUT i do have ideas on continuing it? but this is one of those instances where it would probably have to be a thing that you guys WANT before i do it, rather than me doing it just to do it. in that case it would probably end up being fairly substantial. as always, comment when you're finished!!! let me know what you think and i hope you like it!

Analyzing. Vitals failing. Scanning. Heart rate drastically slowed. Error. Error.

The mission went downhill so quickly.

[Jaime Reyes] Khaji sends his voice to his host’s brain, [The mission has failed. Abort.]

No response from his host, no sign the boy heard him at all. Khaji observes from where he shares Jaime’s senses, observes a bloodied hand shaking as it reaches for something.

[Jaime, I said abort. Now.]

“I can’t,” Jaime tells him. Mentally. Without the strength to speak out loud, “I’m…”

[You aren’t functioning. Your vitals are failing. You are losing too much blood. We need to leave. Now.]

“Bart.”

Khaji Da hardly hears him. He’s busy letting Jaime fall into a sleep mode so he can take over, so he can switch out with him, so he can get them out of there. Jaime, fading. Khaji Da switching with him, feeling his senses heighten, expand. Blinking gold into his eyes, his eyes flickering about the situation.

Vitals failing. Objective, get Jaime somewhere safe and begin the mending process. Call for League help. Every thought so mechanical, so urgently practical, logical. Gold eyes flicker up to scan their surroundings.

A message sends itself to the League, requesting assistance, requesting medical. Urgent. Relief floods Khaji’s chest as he sees that flying up and out will be easy-- he’ll land, and he’ll be away from the fight. And then he can work on fixing his host up. Everything will be fine.

Rising to his feet, recalculating Jaime’s vitals. Gold eyes flicker back to the enemies, for just a moment, wondering why they aren’t on him anymore.

The answer is immediately evident.

Those auburn curls in a mess, messier than they usually are, and caught with dirt and with blood. His golden goggles are cracked, revealing dark lashes. His eyes are closed. A quick scan confirms that he is unconcious.

_Goddamnit_.

There’s blood in the scratches on his face, in the gashes on his legs, his arms, his stomach. A deep, wide gash across his torso. There’s blood everywhere. He’s down, he’s unconscious, and they’re surrounding him. There’s so much blood.

Khaji Da has a a very specific objective. A very simple one. Get himself and his host to safety. Protect them, them first, them over everything else. Be mechanical, follow the objective. Easy, simple. Practical and logical and simple.

He’s curled in on himself, one hand resting under his head, hidden by auburn curls. The other curled over the horrific gash in his stomach, in a vain attempt to keep the wound from bleeding. He’s bleeding out. Even if the enemies don’t get to him-- which they will-- he’ll be dead in ten minutes.

If they don’t get out, Jaime will be dead in fifteen.

Things were easier when Khaji didn’t have this sentience, these feelings and these emotions to get in the way and to complicate things.

 

“Do you like the movie?” He’d said. Khaji Da had looked at him, met big green eyes sparkling with a cute smile, with a comforting smile. It made Khaji want to smile too-- a feeling that was almost foreign to him.

“It’s fine,” he’d said, simply. He didn’t smile, but Bart giggled, laughed, a cute sound rising up from his chest and coming out beautifully happy, bubbly. Organic. Khaji had tilted his head, vaguely, and for whatever reason he wanted to laugh too.

“Yeah, I’m not a fan either.”

Confusion. “Then why are we watching it?”

Bart smiled, bright, those eyes locked on Khaji in a way that made him feel naked, like he was being stripped to his skin and to his blood and to his bones.

“Because I wanted to spend time with you. I’ve made it my mission to make us friends.”

_We_ are _friends_ , Khaji did not say. Why didn’t he say that? It was such a simple thing to say, so why did it scare him so bad? He liked Bart. He liked Bart a lot, in ways he thought sometimes that ran deeper than he had the capacity to understand. He was fun, he was cute. He was sweet. He was beautiful, charming, adorable and captivating. He made Khaji want to smile and never stop with the simplest things, the silliest things, the littlest things. It was unheard of, it was absurd, it was ridiculous. But Bart did anything and Khaji found a bubbly, light feeling rising up inside of him. Pure happiness, pure sweetness. And something else.

 

He’s bleeding out. He doesn’t have long. Khaji Da has a very simple task. He’s dying. Saving him could put both himself and Jaime at great risk, could kill them both. Bart is dying. Red spills from everywhere, those eyes fluttering just slightly. They’re closing in on him.

There’s a choice to be made. Khaji Da can act on base instinct. On what he knows, on what he understands, on what is safe and logical and practical.

Or he can act on this new instinct. A mushier instinct, a risky instinct, a foolish instinct. An _organic_ instinct, through and through. One based on emotion rather than reason.

In the end, there’s no choice to be made at all. There’s no choice, and Khaji throws himself at the broken speedster’s would-be killers without further ado.

There’s no choice. Vitals failing. Thirteen minutes. Metal connects with flesh. Left, right. Fighting, fighting with everything he has inside of him and with all the urgency the situation calls for. Left, right. When the way is clear enough, is safe enough, Khaji Da kneels.

He gathers Impulse up in his arms. Careful not to disrupt his wounds too much, to make him bleed anymore than he already is. To put him in more pain than he is already in. Soft curls fall against his chest as he settles him, gently, carefully. Everything about his movements so soft, so gentle, more gentle than Khaji knew he could be. Cradling his head to his chest with a steady arm around his shoulders, under his legs. He's trembling, curled to Khaji Da like a child. It breaks something in his chest.

Ten minutes. His wings unfold and he takes off, taking to the sky. A blue tendril slips from his back, from his scarab, connecting without any wasted time with the base of Impulse’s skull to enact repairs to the best of his ability. Vitals unstable, but better. Better. He’ll live, and so will Jaime. The League is on its way.

Impulse looks smaller than he usually does, feels smaller, is so _small_. Frail, broken, fragile and soft and light. Khaji’s scared to shift out of fear of him shattering. A soft breath against his chest, scarlet-gloved fingers curling ever so slightly against Khaji’s chest.

“Khaji Da?” his voice is so soft, so broken, so light and so fragile. It breaks something in Khaji’s heart, and that feeling, that deep-running feeling he just can’t decipher-- it rises in his chest. Fills his veins. Fills his throat, makes him feel like crying.

“Shh. It’s okay,” Khaji tells him, as gently as he can. A hand cards through soft auburn, gentle, so gentle. Tender. Soft. “It’s okay. You are going to be fine.”

There was never any choice to be made. As Khaji holds Impulse's broken form in his arms, he knows now there was no way in hell he was ever going to leave his boy to die. As the League arrives overhead, he doesn’t look up, doesn’t keep his attention off of Jaime and Bart’s steadying vitals.

As someone lands in front of him, he realizes that these organic instincts are very likely to take control of him more often than not.

Soft breath falls against his neck, and that same feeling in his chest. Protectiveness, affection. Something more. The League doctors take Impulse away, and as Khaji Da falls into a mode to focus on Jaime’s injuries, he supposes he’ll have to save that puzzle for another day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO I GUeSS THERES MORE TO THIS?? WOW  
> there might be MORE *STiLL* but idk yet? i do kinda want them to kiss idk

Three days. A quick check affirms that Jaime Reyes is still sleeping off his shock, his wounds repaired. Khaji Da has checked him, fixed him, returned him to his health and made certain he will be okay.

Bart Allen, however.

Khaji Da has not seen the speedster since the night he almost died, and with the vitals of his host and the issue of his own survival out of the way, he couldn’t help feeling a kind of overwhelming concern for the boy. Remembering his fluttering eyelashes, his faltering breaths, crimson splatters and spilling from his tummy. Small and broken gathered in Khaji Da’s arms.

Khaji Da doesn’t realize he’s opening the door of Bart’s hospital room until his hand is on the doorknob. It startles him, makes his hand pull back, and he feels his face heat up. Blushing.

Of course he’s going to check on him, though. He has to. He needs to make sure his human is okay. Besides, Bart Allen was in a state of shock last Khaji Da saw him. It was incredibly likely the boy wouldn’t even remember how the events had unfolded, and that in reality Khaji Da had no cause for embarrassment.

The door opened, his eyes flicked up to fall on a washed out Bart Allen, pale and hooked up to a machine. But his hair was just as fluffy, as curly, his skin as freckled, his eyes just as green as they shifted up to meet Khaji’s eyes. A bright smile on his face as he sits up a little more, evidently happy to see him. It makes Khaji feel vulnerable.

“Khaji Da?”

“Bart,” He returns, the door closing behind him as he crosses to him. Bart’s still beaming at him as he sits beside the boy’s bed, regarding him carefully.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Not dead,” A little tilt of his head, his smile turning sort of gentle, “...thanks to you.”

An inward wince. So much for not having a cause for embarrassment.

“...Someone told you.”

“No, silly. I remember,” Bart tells him. An auburn curl spills into his eyes, “I remember everything. You saved me, hero.”

“I…” Flustering, rising inside of him. Vulnerability, “I did what anyone else would do.”

“What? No you didn’t, crazy,” Bart laughs, giggles, sitting up even more in his bed, and Khaji Da’s hands shoot out to steady him.

“Bart, be careful--”

“Anyone else would have saved themselves and let me die. You saved me. You went out of your way to save me. I would have died, Khaji.”

He’s right. Most others would have just let the boy bleed until the light flickered from his eyes. Khaji Da didn’t, but it’s dishonest to say because he was being heroic. Truth be told, if it had been anyone else, Khaji would have flown out to save Jaime without a second thought. If it had been anyone but his Bart.

“You saved me.”

Khaji Da again doesn’t answer, at least not immediately. Head tilted down, he considers the statement, filters through his own thoughts and these strange emotions and tries to decipher what he would like to communicate to Bart. What he feels in the first place.

The answer, he realizes, is in what he felt when he gathered Impulse’s frail form into his arms. When the boy’s head fell soft like snow against his chest, his small frame trembling. His voice when he said Khaji Da’s name, the feeling in Khaji Da’s chest when he held him in his lap and waited for help.

The protectiveness. The… affection.

Affection. Maybe that’s it.

“Khaji Da?”

“Of course I saved you,” His voice sounds too mechanical even to him when his eyes shift up to meet Bart’s pretty greens, “We’re friends, aren’t we? I’d never let you die, Bart Allen-- any more than I would myself or Jaime Reyes.”

That seems to confuse the human boy, and Khaji Da picks up a shift in his body functions. An increased heart rate, just slightly, rushes of certain chemicals in his brain. A small shift of his shoulders up, a light dusting of rose across his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Embarrassed? Whatever it was that he was feeling, it was a good look on him-- the big eyes and his rosy lips parted slightly, the blush pretty across his face.

He is a very pretty human. It's fascinating to Khaji Da, how pretty he is. Something he thinks often about Jaime, but this is different-- Bart does not have their connection. Khaji Da is not inherently with him, does not observe him at any and all times, does not know his mind and his thoughts and his emotions. This is different for Khaji Da-- he feels blinder than with Jaime, this human something he has to figure out without the crutch of having knowledge readily available. Bart is an enigma. A cute, fun, tempting enigma.

And Khaji Da feels very protective of this human. He wants everyone to know that the boy is _his_ , under his protection. And he wants Bart to know too.

“Um,” Bart says softly, blinking as his eyes turn down to the floor, that red spreading as he tucks a curl sheepishly behind his ear. Sheepish. That’s a look Khaji Da thought he’d never see on his Bart, “That’s  _ actuallycrazysweet _ .”

“It’s only truth, Bart Allen. I will never leave you.”

A flicker of green as the boy looks up, as he smiles. Khaji Da wants more than almost anything to know what is happening in the human’s brain.

But the most, he wants to know what’s happening in his own, why he feels so much like he understands Jaime does when he looks at Bart, now while Khaji Da observes the boy himself.

“I can stay with you,” Khaji Da tells him, “While you sleep.”

Bart laughs, lightly, a nervous sound, “You don’t need to--”

“I want to,” Khaji Da corrects him, watching as his own hand comes out to tuck an auburn curl behind the boy’s ear. His skin is soft against Khaji Da’s fingertips, heated gently where he’s blushing, his messy curls light and soft against his hand. Khaji Da holds his hand there a little too long before he finally pulls it back, swallowing, “I want to. You’re hurt, and I told you I’d always keep you safe.”

“I-I’m safe,” Bart smiled, giggled, looking at Khaji Da with a kind of glaze in his green eyes that Khaji can’t quite place, “It’s a hospital room, Khaji Da, I’m safe.”

“It would make me feel better.”

Bart simply looks at him for a while, before he smiles lightly, nodding.

Khaji Da watches him carefully lay down, his curls ruffling as they fall against his pillow. His eyes fall on Khaji Da again, before they finally flutter shut. Khaji Da rests his arms on the bed, watches the human boy fall asleep, and he stays there by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/
> 
> i love comments!!! i live for them!!! i check for them everyday please comment!


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